


A Shot In The Dark

by Butterflyfish



Series: Getting to know Daryl Dixon. [12]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:15:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21917416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterflyfish/pseuds/Butterflyfish
Summary: Daryl and Abra are making their way through my version of the TWD world.Abra and Daryl stand beside their fellow survivors to see Negan off to Hell where he belongs, but when Rick takes that decision from anyone else's hands, and forces many of the group into roles they did not ask for, it could cause all sorts of problems.Someone takes a shot in the dark, and misses the mark completely.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character(s), Rick Grimes/Michonne
Series: Getting to know Daryl Dixon. [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/359903
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> After this episode there will be a time jump, and then we will get to see Daryl and Abra's baby, and how more recent events in the TV show affect them and their lives together.  
> I hope you stick around for that, it's going to be an emotional ride.

I hid behind the door frame, beyond the room where Rick talked with Morales. Rick talking the guys ear off, if he didn't have a gun in his hand aimed at Rick's head, I'd've felt sorry for him. No sense of urgency, that was Rick's issue.

"Why? Morales asked, genuinely, wondering how Rick could be so sure if the tables were turned, If Rick had the gun, Morales wouldn't be dead. "'Cause we knew each other for a few days back at the start?"

"Look, I know...I...I wouldn't, I wouldn't just..." searching for an excuse, Rick was actually starting to grate on me just lately. My boy was dead because of what this asshole stood for now, I didn't give a shit who he was before. Rick shouldn't have either.

"You want to know what I think? I think you can talk all you want. You can say all the words. Lori, Shane, Andrea, Glenn. They're all dead, and somewhere along the way, Officer Friendly died right along with 'em. Just like I did with them. That's what I know, Rick."

I'd heard enough. A saviour couldn't be reasoned with. I shot Morales through the back of the head, if only so he'd quit his incessant rambling.

"That, That, that was..." I took a deep breath to stop myself from shooting Rick, too.

"Yeah, I know who it was, don't matter, not one li'l bit." I pulled my bolt free of the corpse's skull as Rick told me that saviours were coming. He needn't have, they bust through the door less than a second later. We fought them off in order to chase down the weapons cache, which no doubt had moved again. The saviours always seemed one step ahead of us, and they were rousing my suspicion as much as they were getting my hackles up. Who was helping them? We had someone helping us, was it them?

It was impossible to tell, and I couldn't get past the fact that all I wanted was Negan dead. Rick kept trying to talk me down, and goddammit I was sick of his damned voice half the time. Abra was stuck left behind, a makeshift splint holding her together, and it was all because of that asshole, and frankly I needed him gone asap. I didn't care how, or who went with him.

Hindsight's a wonderful thing, but I wasn't far enough forward to look back. 

* * *

My leg had been repositioned in a manner I imagined was used before the 1900s began. Modern medicine appeared to have gone back to medieval medicine, and I have to say, not a huge fan.

Denise, Rosita, Tara and a couple of guys I could barely name, had pulled my leg bones apart, and squashed them back together, manipulating my muscles as I passed out with pain. I remember the start of it though, and I miss Anaesthesia very much. It left me briefly wondering how on earth I would cope with childbirth, but I was doing my utmost not to think about that too much.

The worst part of it was the bedrest. Six weeks? The war would hopefully be over, and then what? I wouldn't have played my part in the demise of that Negan asshole. I wasn't even given a job to do, just left at home, with regular visits from Denise which I wasn't entirely sure were all for the sake of my leg.

It could have been worse, I could have lost it, (the leg, and my patience.) I could have been left with a deadly infection and turned before anyone realised what had caused it and eaten half of their faces, or half of Daryl's face, or something.

I know I sound ungrateful, but I needed to see this war happening. I had to know that Negan and the saviours were paying for what they did to us.

I never had been blood thirsty. Not before. I was peace loving, serene feeling. I did yoga and posted things on Facebook and Twitter about mindfulness. God. What a dick. I preferred the way I became to the way I was, absolutely. A mother, a wife, soon to be a mother again. I sure as hell weren't about to bring a kid into a world that still contained Negan, no way. I didn't care who who lived or died, so long as Negan died.

God. What a dick.


	2. Chapter 2

Laura looked at me, breathing hard, her bangs plastered to her face with sweat.

"He was a good guy." She spat, vehemently.

"He killed my son." I fought to keep my voice calm. The fingers I held around her throat threatened to flex and tighten, and they, too, required strength to keep from squeezing the life out of the tattoo necked saviour I held.

"Abra!" I heard from the doorway, low, but sharp enough I knew the voice meant business, and Laura had the gall to smirk as I was caught red-handed attempting to get my vengeance on the saviours. I squeezed my eyes closed, and took a breath through my nose. I could feel Daryl's eyes burning into my back. Without letting Laura go I explained to him;

"She said things. About my boy." I paused, I couldn't form a complete sentence without that pause. My heart was heavy with hormones and the freshly opened wound of loss. His hands were suddenly on me, I hadn't heard him step into the room. His hands found my shoulders, my arms, he pulled me away from Laura without much effort as I turned, pivoting on one good leg, and collapsed into him. I heard a muffled conversation between Laura and Daryl, it got heated and she left with stomping feet and the bang of a door slamming home into its frame.

"She's helping us." Daryl said gently, with me still cradled in his arms. "She's on our side."

"She said things," I repeated, my voice muffled by the large expanse of his chest. I knew it didn't matter, Daryl would know what I meant even without a word, even with so much a sniffle in the right way, and he'd know what I was saying.

"I said she's on our side, I didn't say she weren't being a bitch. Maybe try'n stay outta her way." I hated that he could be so cool about it, while I vibrated with barely contained anger. He'd been cold and calculated for a while by then, he'd had to be. One of us had to be. Nothing was going to get done if he'd just stormed off full of emotion. "You didn't kill 'im, Sasha did, n she's paid for it now, due's paid. They'll get theirs, all of 'em. I promise." I nodded, breathing him in even as he pulled away from me. He gave me a firm nod, his mouth in a tight, thin lipped, straight line.

That's the thing about Daryl being cold and emotionless. Sometimes it spilled over to me. I know he didn't mean it, Jesus, he had just been holding me so closely, he came home and we still made love when we could, but it stung, none the less.

I made the most of those times, the closeness, by then we had already lost so much, and I daren't ever say it out loud, but I was just very scared.

* * *

I'd heard every damned word. I don't know if pregnancy was making it worse, but Abra had a short memory when it came to flipping out. All I could do was support her, when I found my own strength to do so. I had to be this rock for her, and I struggled myself to do it, but I did it. Sometimes begrudgingly, sometimes I was so tired I wanted to curl up and sleep for a month, sometimes I was so sad I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. But she and the baby needed me to be present, and be strong. Looking back I would change a few things if I could.

I can't.

So Abra weren't necessarily the innocent party, but she was suffering and sad and I held her, and when she was ok again I left to do what I'd been doing every day for a week already.

Killing people to get to Negan. 

Innocent people? Rick seemed to think so. In my eyes they were all guilty as each other. They were all Negan, right? So what did it matter if a few extra mass graves had to be dug, or a few extra bodies got burned in the short term? We'd have to find room for them all once we destroyed their leader and their home anyway, and we didn't have much to share between us as it was.

God, looking back it sounds so cold hearted. Especially when I thought even Laura, who was helping us behind Negan's back, could just be used and then left for dead, hell even locked up or killed after Negan was dealt with... but I lost my boy, and I felt not a single other person on earth could possibly understand how that felt, and every last one of them needed to pay for what had happened to him, and Abra, who had been there when it happened. Everyone had to suffer for the fact that I was not there to take the pain away for either of them.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I try not to use it much. Not much point thinking back and not looking forward. I do wonder if I had had time to stop and think what I was doing, if I would have done anything different. Probably not, in my state of mind.

* * *

"We can use these now." A truck loaded with weapons, a couple dead saviours, it was a fucking goldmine. Rick had the audacity to look at me like I'd lost my damn mind.

"What?" he asked, his head tilted slightly to the side in disbelief.

"Think about it." Innocently enough, I believed he just hadn't thought of the obvious. "Ain't no kingdom no more, we'll blow open the sanctuary, let the walkers right in. They'll surrender, it'll be done." I huffed a half laugh, shrugging my shoulders as I hefted up a box of explosives, "Shit, we could be done by sundown." Rick's eyes narrowed, and I knew by the cock of his head, the angle of his damned groin, that this wasn't going to go without some kind of fight.

"They have workers in there, don't they?" He asked quietly, as if he didn't fucking know already. "Families?" He said that last with real emphasis, his eyes narrowed, his head tilted. I felt my nostrils flare a little.

"We'll blow up the south side. Workers, they live in the north side of the building. They'll be up the steps before the smoke even clears." Rick licked his lips,

"What if they don't." He said, his hand out flat and placating. "There're people in there who aren't fighters, Daryl. Doing this" he gestured around us "Could change that." he shrugged. "They pick up guns and fight along side the rest of them, everyone against us, and we don't have the kingdom anymore." I got his point, I mulled it over for a second. but there was more at stake then a bunch of savours, and it didn't matter if they were fighters or not, they were on the wrong side, they had made their bed.

Rick took my silence for agreement, nodded his head and smiled

"We're not doing this." I chewed my tongue, took a deep breath.

"Nah, you ain't doin' this." I picked up my explosives and turned away, heading for the bike. Fuck it, I'll do it myself if I have to. The opportunity was there to be seized, and I was gonna take it.

When he grabbed me, pulled at my sleeve and turned me to face him, I saw red. nothing was going to stop what came next, as I told him people died, reminded him that Charlie died, and wondered what he would have said if this was years before, back at the prison, where Lori had died by the governor's hand, in much the same way, indirectly.

I got him good, that afternoon. My knuckles were sore for days after.

* * *

I didn't question the red marks, like carpet burn, across Daryl's knuckles. He didn't seem in the mood for talking, and that was ok sometimes. Things were bad, I could feel it. He and Rick had arrived back separately that night, and Rick had a bruise around his neck and scrapes on his own hands.

I didn't question it. I should have.

sometimes I look back and I wish I had told Daryl how stupid and pig headed he was being.

At the end of the day, it wouldn't have made a difference. except to remove my current guilt about a situation which really was nothing to do with me.

I climbed into bed beside my husband, kissed the nape of his neck, snuggled as closely as I could behind him and just listened to the sound of our breathing as our unborn kid kicked him in the back, not that Daryl could fell it, but I knew that little squirmy baby was already appreciative of all it's daddy was doing to keep us safe.

Daryl's breathing evened out slowly, and I gently traced the scars on his back with a single finger.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter to move this on.  
> Negan’s capture.

“No!” It was in surround sound, all around me, that one word.  
It came from _my_ mouth and also beyond, from Maggie, from Rosita, from Daryl.

“Not after what he did!” Maggie yelled “Rick, it’s not over...” Maggie was being held back, and as I tried to move forward I felt like I was moving through mud, good old Georgia clay. Daryl’s arms were around me, he held me back. Dumbstruck, I looked at him. How could he... A minor shake of his head.

“He can’t live.” I hissed, disbelieving. We’d come so far, he was within reach, all he had done could be undone with a simple swipe of a knife. A bullet placed just so in his face.  
A numbness took my heart, not that it had felt much since Charlie died. A choked sob escaped me as I thought his name. “It’s not over until he’s dead.” I managed, my throat closing on itself. Maggie had quieted to soft “no”s farther up the hill, where I daren’t climb with my damaged leg.

“It’s not over.” Daryl agreed, his lips barely moving. “But it will be.” I stared at him, his eyes dark and narrow, bore into mine from behind his dark and greasy hair. I knew I could trust him. He loosened his grip on me. “Patience.” He whispered. I let him let me go, and I watched as Siddique strapped Negan up, keeping him alive. I sobbed openly, my heavy heart feeling like jagged glass in my chest.


	4. Chapter 4

I stared at Rick, felt my chest try to get tight as my breathing sped up. I could hear it, air blasting from my nose like a dragon, threatening to light him on fire. 

His face was open, not quite placid, more inviting an argument. His head tilted the minutest bit to one side, light blue eyes wide, expectant. 

“Abra won’t go for it” I heard myself say, as if I was agreeing. “Don’t you get it?” 

“It’s not forever, don’t you want to turn it around?” I snorted a disbelieving laugh and shook my head. Turn it around. Fuck. He didn’t get it. 

“I don’t wanna see the place ever again, Rick.” I said honestly. “That place...” I shook my head, unable to find the words, as he put his hands on his hips, posturing. He wasn’t there, he was never there. Not like we were. This wasn’t what I was expecting when he promised great things. I don’t know what we expected, but now...

“While that sorry excuse for a prick sits behind the walls of my home, I get to go back to the place where I was tortured. Where my wife, My Pregnant Wife, was held, forced to eat cat food, had her finger chopped off. Those people...” I stopped, I could feel my pulse behind my eyes. I realised my hands were clenching and unclenching fists at my sides, itching to finish some half assed job I’d already made of his face once. 

“Daryl...”

“I’ll go” I said, cutting him off before he could start giving me a speech. _“We’ll_ go.” If only just to get away from him, and his face, which pleaded for a fist to be thrown through it in that moment.

With Maggie and Tara already at hilltop, more of us dead than I care to think of, was Alexandria really still home?  


I couldn’t find Abra, the house was empty, I knew the moment I walked in. There’s a coldness you only feel when walking into an empty house. The place had felt colder since Charlie... but this was altogether different. 

I found myself not wanting to know where she might be, but having every idea, all the same. 

* * *

I paced outside the small basement window, thinking that even being level with the filthy soles of my old boots was too good for him. 

“Darlin’, must you pace outside my only window?” I ground my teeth, pursed my lips. I continued, arms folded, stomping in the way of his only light source. 

I could hear him huffing and puffing. The springs on his bed squeaked and groaned as he shifted his weight around. 

“You know,” he said, the anger clear in his voice, “I didn’t kill Charlie.” 

“No!” I span to the window, got down on my haunches so that I could see his face. “You don’t speak his name, you don’t get to do that.” 

“I didn’t kill him, I made a fucking order not to fucking kill him.” I could hear my pulse, but somehow his damn voice still got through. “In fact, my order was specifically _not_ to touch a fair hair on his _precious_ little head.” I chewed my tongue. He was trying to make me lash out, poking the bear. It wouldn’t take much, and he knew it, and then I’d be in all sorts of trouble with Rick and Michonne, whose fantastic idea of keeping him alive had thus far been taken incredibly badly by 90% of their peers. 

I suddenly felt I may as well be kneeling in the dust, crouching to talk to him, so pulled myself up and headed instead through the gate and into the cell. My leg was complaining at the sudden and unexpected use, I tried to keep the limp to as minimum as I could as I walked in to face him. He was still an arrogant prick at that point, and any excuse to bully, abuse and belittle was still being used in full force.

“Story’s the same in here.” He said as I faced him through the bars. “I didn’t do it.” I stared at him, eyes narrow, heart racing. I didn’t even want him to suffer, I just wanted him dead. I chewed my cheek as I contemplated his smug face. A smattering of stubble had appeared and the gash in his neck was no more than a small scar.He’d been out of the infirmary a few weeks. 

“What’s up peaches, cat got your tongue?” He flashed me a perfect row of white teeth and raised his eyebrows. 

“Funny.” I said, feeling rigid and frozen where I stood. “My tongue is still in my head, I daren’t think about what chowed down on my finger.” He laughed at that. I felt my lip curl into a sneer. “You shouldn’t be here” I said, and he got up from the bed. He was tall, well over My 5.9, and I craned my neck to look up at him as he approached the bars. 

“I have a question.” He said casually, sauntering over like he wasn’t imprisoned here, but more like he owned the place. I raised an eyebrow inviting him to ask, he looked me up and down, took in my hugely rounded belly, now protruding proudly out of my pants at somewhere between 22-25 weeks, and finally looked at my face. 

“What did you do with Lucille?” He wasn’t just curious. The look in his eyes was of genuine concern. If I didn’t know better, I thought he might cry. 

“Lucille?” I asked, astounded, so sure he must have meant someone else. Laura, perhaps, or Arat. Surely no one was that attached to a Louisville Slugger. 

But the concern didn’t leave his face, big brown eyes puppy-like and emotional. 

“The...bat?” I asked at length, so sure again that this man was insane, but also remembering the games he played. I was about to tell him, just let loose that we left the stupid hunk of splinters and kindling in Georgia amongst the dead, in a prison, but the door flew inwards and crashed into the wall, halting my words and making me jump. Negan and I both turned to see who the violent entrant was, and Daryl slid into the room. His face was thunder, pinched and narrow, his eyes thin slits in his face. 

“What’re you doing in here?” He asked me, his voice gravel. I shrugged.

“Just watching shit rot. Why? You ok?” Negan let out a hurt noise which we both ignored. 

“Nah, as a matter of fact, I ain’t. Went to see Rick. He’s sending us to the Sanctuary” my breath caught in my throat and an odd noise escaped me as I felt my eyes grow wide. Daryl just watched me as my face changed, trying to gauge my reaction as Negan let out a groan behind us. 

“You two?” He cried out in disbelief as I finally found my voice.

“What?! No.” I managed, finally, shaking my head, my hands instantly going to my bump and cradling my unborn child. “Has he lost his mind? I’m not going back there.” Daryl gave me his signature single nod. 

“‘S’ what I said. He thought we’d wanna turn it around” 

“Turn it around?” Negan repeated, still disbelieving. “That place ran like a goddamn dream when I was in charge. There’s no need to turn anything around.” Daryl looked over my shoulder for the first time since walking into the jail. 

“Shut ya mouth. Ain’t no one talkin’ to you.” 

“We’ll maybe you should be. No one knows that place like I do.” Negan had the audacity to throw Daryl a cheeky smile, and I felt him bristling beside me, hackles up, blood pumping him full of electricity. He glided passed me and towards the jail cell, I put my hand out to stop him. 

“Patience.” I said quietly “that’s what you said.” He took a moment,chewed the thought over, and nodded. 

“Listen to the baby momma, Daryl.” Daryl turned away from the cell, took my other hand from my bump and replaced it with his own. 

“Better get out of here while I still have any” he said quietly, as our baby kicked his hand hard enough for him to pull it away, smiling. 

* * *

“C’mon” I said to Abra, guiding her to the nearest exit away from that asshole, my hand gentle on the small of her back. “Let’s talk somewhere else.” She walked with me a few steps before turning back to Negan.

“Georgia” she said, seemingly for no reason at all. “There’s a prison, full of walkers and dust. That’s where we left her. In the dirt.” She turned sharply away again and I felt the tell-tale shudder of her body that meant she was trying not to cry. I knew she meant Lucille, and I knew she was thinking about our son, who was never ours but my daughter’s kid, who we raised as though he were our own. 

I tried not to think about the technicalities too much, the messed up biology. Charlie was mine and Abra’s, and we left his memory in the red clay dust of Georgia too, and that realisation hurt like a bitch. That was what mattered.

Negan was yelling, demanding we go back and face him, ‘you spineless bitch’ was a term I had to stiffen my own back and grit my teeth against. 

Abra was not spineless. But Negan was looking for a reaction we were not willing to give. 

Leaving him furious made me feel a bit better, a smirk toyed with the corner of my mouth but I paid it no mind, there were serious matters to discuss. 

“The sanctuary?” Abra hissed, stomping along, her limp suddenly prominent, beside me breathing hard as we headed back to our home. Our home for now. “They’ll tear us to pieces.” She said flatly, but I wasn’t so sure about that. I pushed the door to our house open, and she walked in ahead of me, tearing her jacket off and throwing it heavily on the couch. 

“Maybe not, what are they without that sack’a shit? Without that fuckin’ bat?” Abra turned to face me, she looked like she might be sick. 

“Don’t.” She said, her voice raspy in her shock “don’t talk like you agree with him.” I shook my head.

“No:-“

“He’s the reason Charlie is dead.” She cut me off. “Why I’m running around with nine fingers, why neither of us have slept properly in months...” she broke off, exhausted. 

“Abs.” I tried softly, approaching her “look, someone has to take control over there, someone has to.”

”Doesn’t have to be us, shouldn’t be us, Daryl. Rick is being selfish. Surely he realises it’s the last thing we want. He’s punishing you for that fight you had” I shook my head, I didn’t think that was it at all. Rick wasn’t petty, he was off the mark this time, that was all.

But was he? What were those men and women other than scared? They just wanted to be led because they were too shit scared to lead themselves.

It could be a cakewalk.

”it could be Hell” Abra said as if she had read my mind. “It could be awful. But there’s one way to find out, I guess.” She swiped at her face, wiping away tears I hadn’t noticed, we desperately needed to get our heads out of our asses, maybe The Sanctuary was the place to do that. They needed to learn how to farm, which had been Abra’s job at Alexandria for years, and they needed to learn that Negan’s way was not the only way.

“Ok” she said, an air of finality to the word. “When?”


End file.
